Hi,
recently I´ve watched a documentation which is called "The Extended Mind: Recent Experimental Evidence", a presentation by the scientist Rupert Sheldrake.

Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnA8GUtXpXY

...if you aren´t interested in the whole thing, jump right to 10:15.
He explains that it is experimentally proved and well known by security forces that very often a person feels when he is sneaked upon from behind....

(11:35 is especially interesting regarding Thief..."when you are going to knock someone out from behind dont look at his back..." ;) )
Would be quite interesting to implement this discovery in Thief 4 as gameplay/and or story element....

What do you think?

Psychomorph

26th May 2009, 22:45

That's a good one. Generally, I think it is not always some mystical sense kind of thing, sometimes things or people produce, let me call it "microsounds" (or any other kind of "information"), things that barely anybody can consciously hear/see/feel, but the unconsciousness often gives you information in form of a strange feeling, which you sometimes decide to proove even if you do not know the reason, so you can turn around without really knowing why you had the impulse to do so and suddenly someone is standing right behind you. It is a simple complex thing, but works more often than you might believe.

That doesn't mean I do not believe there is some sort of a "sixth sense", I sort of do actually.

However, in the game, a random factor where people can suddenly turn around or check their flanks, should be given, that would be the spice in the sneaky soup.

hexhunter

26th May 2009, 23:43

He was on BBC Radio 4 last week, the museum of curiosity (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00k3wvk/episodes/2009) is a comedy show made by the QI team which puts things in their imaginary museum.

I haven't watched all the video yet, but by the radio show I just couldn't understand what he meant, he's doing science a diservice by underexplaining his results and he's making himself seem like any other collective conscience nut.

I hope he isn't a nut, but if he isn't frankly what he's saying doesn't sound like any amazing new discovery and he's just sexing it up to get famous.

I wonder if he's ever seen Donnie Darko???

-- Deus X Machina

Limesneeker

27th May 2009, 00:14

Well one way to implement something like that could be that guards are getting suspicious when they´re too long in your field of view....

...or there is a limited time period in which you can sneak behind a guard before he gets suspicious and turns around so that you have to hurry when blackjacking...

Apart from wether there´s a sixth sense or not: for years I thought that Thief would be even more interesting if from time to time guards would suspiciously stop walking without reason and/or turn around spontanous and unexpected when you´re sneaking....

@hexhunter
collective conscience nuts like who?

Actually there are quite a lot RATIONAL reasons for why there is a need for non-material forces. By the way: quantum non-locality is experimentally PROVED. Think about it...it would be nonsense to believe that it does NOT influence macrosocopic systems and behaviour...

Belboz

27th May 2009, 03:46

I dont think ai code is good enough yet to add this type of thing, they've still got the wirte ai code that can fool a person in to believeing that they are talking to a real person, coding in instincts that have taken over 4 million years for humans to learn is probably way beyond current code.

Keeper_Riff

27th May 2009, 06:06

http://www.gamasutra.com/gdc2003/features/20030307/leonard_02.htm

http://www.gamasutra.com/gdc2003/features/20030307/figure_04.jpg

The motivation for multiple viewcones is to enable the expression of such things as direct vision, peripheral vision, or a distinction between objects directly forward and on the same Z plane as opposed to forward but above and below. Cone number 5 in the diagram above is a good example of leveraging the low-level to express a high level concept. This "false vision" cone is configured to look backwards and configured to be sensitive to motion, giving the AI a "spidey-sense" of being followed too closely even if the player is silent.

AFAIR, Bafford's throne room guards use them and some mechanists too when alerted.

DoomyDoomyDoomDoom

27th May 2009, 06:23

I know the first thing most people will say is something like "no it wouldn't be fun". While I don't believe there should be a reason (like you looking at them) for the ai to turn around, I do believe they should do it and things like it from time to time. I wouldn't mind if a guard strayed from his path or checked over his shoulder from time to time. Just as long as it doesn't always seem targeted at me. Very creepy in TDS when you zoom in on a guards face, it sometimes looks like he's staring right at you. buuurrrr, such creepy eyes:eek:

AFAIR, Bafford's throne room guards use them and some mechanists too when alerted. I just played that first mission in TDP. I thought I was making a sound that didn't get played through my speakers because as soon as I crept behind the guard in the tiled hall he would turn right around and attack me. I had to get him by waiting in the dark and blackjacking him as he walked by. Could not creep to that guy at all. Had to be waiting for him.

hexhunter

27th May 2009, 12:20

Maybe some AIs could use it, like Mages and Haunts, but in the average guard it would be annoying and no fun. However guards could react to you staring at them, start panicking when you sneak up on them, maybe make comments about how they feel like they're being watched, it has to be a rare occurence though or it won't suprise the player.

Flashart

27th May 2009, 13:48

The tech has already been done. In the Military Sneaker "Hidden And Dangerous 2" you could disguise yourself with enemy uniforms. If the enemy spotted you, a countdown appeared on screen
giving you time to conceal yourself. The more enemies that spotted you, the faster the timer went down. It worked averagely well, in a "Colditz" style camp you ended up sprinting down corridors, which would have drawn attention to you anyway.
The way this might work is if you had say, a static observation post, with a telescope that needs time to focus in on you, you'd have a few moments to move or hide etc before alarms went off.

hexhunter

27th May 2009, 14:32

There's no on-screen timer, but that's kinda how the mech faces work in TMA, if it spots you it makes a noise while it focuses/tries to recognise you, in those few seconds you can return to cover and it won't remember a thing.

BlooferLady

27th May 2009, 20:43

Neat idea!

I think it should be randomized, though, rather than having to count how many seconds you've been shadowing a specific guard. Perhaps just occasionally, one of them can spin around, and then have their classic "ha! Oh, spooked myself" line.